| Mike's Blog 26th August 2011
Team Sanya's phase one which was the refit phase is now well and truly done, the refit phase included the Fastnet and what a great way to put a final date to that. The result we were really happy with, from a performance standpoint we felt the boat was what we hoped, of course you hope by some miracle that she is just going to defy evolution and be as quick as the new boats all the time, but that wasn't reality, the big bonus though was that she was there or there abouts in a lot of the conditions we experienced and with some smart moves we could still find our way to the front of the pack, then on top of that there we are still hopeful there is a window where she has an edge, only time will tell though.
Since the Fastnet we have done a good two day offshore trip and a couple of days day sailing to check out new systems , we even had the luxury yesterday of doing some inshore race practice, all this really did was emphasize how far we have got to go before we can muscle the thing around a short course. All good fun though.
This morning the boat is out of the water for five days of maintenance and development, the shore crew have now got there baby back to help take her to the next level, as a sailing team we are off to our Safety course which all the teams do in Newcastle here in the UK, it's a very extensive and rigorous course which involves some pretty scary Life raft scenario's in the wave pool with the lights turned off, there is no doubt though it is just making the race safer and safer.
After that we are back in the water and we are off again offshore for more training and sail testing, in that time we will sail to Ireland and back which will be great and we will just continue to grow and develop as a team. While we are talking about the Team, it was with great excitement that we announced Tiger as or first Chinese crew member, Tiger since joining the team has just shown the most fantastic attitude and hunger to learn, he is a great asset and is learning the ways of a Volvo sailor at a frantic pace.
Thanks for checking in on us, until next time.
Cheers
Mike
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